Gekiganger III

Summary: >

If you've seen Martian Successor Nadesico, you're familiar with the anime Akito watched obsessivly: Gekiganger III. A few of the Nadesico crew decide to watch the recently re released Gekiganger movie. Wait what was Gekiganger III about again?

Long ago, the people from the neo-paleolithic era left a blueprint for a giant robot - Gekiganger III (what happened to 1 & 2? Who knows). From there the show goes into a wacky full on parody of mecha anime. The story is more like a collection from the fictional Gekiganger III series, so there's not much of a story to really describe...

Thoughts: >

To understand this one, some context is required. Gekiganger III is an old school anime which could be strait out of the catalog of giant robot anime from the 70s - especially Mazinger Z. Most of us never saw that anime, and even older titles like Voltron which did make it to America had already advanced quite a bit from the titles that came before it. What's kind of scary is that even though modern anime likes gloss up giant robots and jazz up the soundtrack, you can still see the roots in much older titles. Meaning, you can get the idea behind them even if you haven't actually seen them. Besides which Mazinger Z is still kinda badass even today. I mean it punches the head off a dragon in the opening credits. That's pretty hardcore.

It doesn't make much sense to watch this unless you've seen Nadesico first. If you have, then you should know what you're in for. In Nadesico, Gekingager III was broken up into small segments.** For this "movie", it's basically a recap of those segments - which is still good for a laugh. The second part is the "new material", where Gekiganger must face it's toughest rival yet. It does an exceptional job imitating how "{series} the movie" used to go.

Keep in mind Gekiganger is a satire that gets its entertainment value from pointing out how silly older titles where. It's a parody without explicit jokes. This OVA does a great job at replicating the visual style of older titles, however the biggest success in this OVA would have to be the soundtrack which captures the catchy cheesiness of 70s anime perfectly. Especially the ending theme of "the movie" with the credits rolling past.

[+] Note on Nadesico

Gekiganger III is a fun parody, but it's unlikely you'd want to specifically seek it out. It's best left to Nadesico fans, but any one who can appreciate 70s anime will probably get some laughs out if it.

** As an aside, the Gekiganger anime was actually featured for one full episode of Nadesico. Normally Akito watches Gekiganger when he can. In an ingenious twist, the "recap" episode features the cast of Gekiganger instead watching Martian Successor Nadesico.

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